A Million Little Pieces
by Abraxas Qlippoth
Summary: Squidward, fed up with Spongebob, conspires with Plankton to steal the formula and kill the sponge. But what happens after Squidward gets everything he wanted? Does he find peace and happiness? And is Spongebob dead?


Disclaimer: I do not own SpongeBob Squarepants, and I do not make any money from these writings.

**"A Million Little Pieces"** by **Abraxas** 2010-07-04

A thousand annoyances I suffered at the jest of Spongebob.

I thought I could be civil about it - despite everything that transpired - but day by day, and gaff after gaff, I realized peace was impossible. Understand that I was driven beyond the edge of sanity. You, who judge, you would have succumbed too.

Behind that steel hard gaze that chides my situation is a mind apt to crumble if subject to life with that animal. You would have done exactly as I. Even as you shake your head you know it to be true!

A string of bad luck entwined me with Spongebob. Yet along with that fate came my path toward salvation. Only at the abyss of my agony was it revealed. That is the difference between you and I - my good luck would have been denied to you. Maybe you would not have succeeded.

I tried everything. I tried selling my house a dozen times. Impossible with neighbors as despicable as Spongebob. I tried running away to a commune of like minded cephalopods. My exposure to that animal so distorted my view of reality that shortly I failed to fit in with my own kind! Spongebob! That laughter, like nails on chalkboards, that optimism as insane as anything, that inability to grasp the obvious as obnoxious as maddening. I concluded that Spongebob needed to go away.

I do not recall exactly when the idea entered my brain but when it sunk into my thoughts it became obsession. Outside I tried to be 'normal' like the Squidward the people thought I should have been. Inside I was a torrent of ideas bubbling over with plans. Schemes grew into and out of existence as theories were formulated, tested, and abandoned. The central problem was the sponge and how it was killed.

I questioned the possibility of poison. A toxic acid or sludge. The way to do it without contaminating (and revealing) myself simply eluded my efforts. Beyond that I simply could not conceive of a way to do the deed. Spongebob was impervious to trauma and was able to regenerate limbs and other parts of the body. If it were possible to process his body into a million little pieces that might have been the trick to kill him. Then I wondered - might he pull himself back together? Might those pieces spawn an army of Spongebobs? Neither were outcomes I wished to discover.

Months passed and I agonized about my predicament. Suffering that incessant laughter. Forcing me into his games. Destroying my quiet evening nights. I do not remember a complete night's rest during that period of incubation.

Yet it was out of that Spongebob-induced madness that I came to a revelation.

It happened in the middle of the night. Spongebob (and Patrick) and friends were partying at the Pineapple. I just knew, someway, somehow, I was going to be dragged into the fracas. I kept my light off and crawled on hands and knees from my bedroom to the back of my house. There, very very quietly, degree by degree, I opened the doorway. I crawled outside.

The glare coming off of the Pineapple was bright and I was forced to walk almost into the wilderness behind the neighborhood to escape detection. I made extra careful efforts to ensure I was not seen or followed. Until I was totally out of earshot to the party I was not safe and knew it. At any given time one of the idiots was bound to remember about me and come to find me.

I walked into what seemed like an abyss. An endless tunnel of black. Eventually the light of the city came into view. The vista overlooking Bikini Bottom was a network of tiny red and green signals above streets revealing portions of buildings, sidewalks, fish here and there. Soon my feet were pounding that pavement and I was headed toward the only island of refuge I knew - the Krusty Krab.

Again, to avoid the eyes of enemies, I veered toward the rear of the restaurant. But, as I was ready to unlock the entrance, I noticed activity at the Chum Bucket. And there I thought that establishment shut at night. Out of nowhere I decided enough was enough and vowed to meet eyeball-to-eyeball with the amoeba.

Plankton was skeptical about my offer - he imagined that it was a trick devised by Krabs. I spent that night relating all of my incidents with Spongebob. By morning it was safe to say we bonded through hatred of that fry-cook.

The problem about how to eliminate Spongebob also vexed Plankton. Unlike me, though, he was a college educated engineer able to tackle that problem with science. Meanwhile, to prove my worth and win my freedom, I agreed to help the cause by stealing the secret Krabby Patty formula.

We agreed with a shake to work each other's problem.

I was, actually, giddy. The thought that I would be free of Spongebob come hell or low-water filled me with a kind of joy that was difficult to hide. The last mistake I wanted to make was to give Spongebob any hint that something was different. That only led to poking and prodding - and questions. It was going to drive me up the wall with frustration. Everything needed to be normal and I forced myself to act accordingly.

Krabs was a cheap and predictable crustacean. The secrets he kept were always simply to decipher. The formula was stashed within the office and at the obvious location. Always. Always. If it was not about money there was little imagination.

I could not get to it, though, as he was constantly at the office.

The first step of my plan was to locate where it was lately. My eye trained by art revealed where the slightest alteration of detail occurred. There were no meetings scheduled that week but I found excuse after excuse to barge into the office. Maybe it was a complaint about Spongebob. Maybe it was to talk about my salary (or lack of it). So it went for days with this and that until it pestered Krabs.

I discovered the location.

I remember a day when he stepped away long enough that it would have been easy to take the formula and stash it in my pocket. Alas, when the thought came to me I did not act. He returned just like that - like a bubble of ecstacy burst.

The second step of my plot involved a patient wait until the delivery next Monday. I told Plankton - every Monday a truck rolled into the back of the restaurant then Krabs with Spongebob hauled the cargo into the kitchen. The process did not take an hour to complete. It was a window of opportunity that could not be passed-up.

Meanwhile Plankton informed me about excellent progress regarding the way to neutralize Spongebob.

When the weekend came I was giddy. My limbs ached with a surge of adrenaline. I wanted to shout for joy. I wanted to jump up and down. I wanted to run around in circles. I swear I did not feel as alive as I did then and there knowing that in a few days my torment would be at an end. I was so high it did not matter to me that Spongebob's annoyances were themselves reaching a peak. If it were possible to relive those two days in perpetuity it would be heaven to me.

Saturday it seemed he knocked at my door every five minutes to ask if I wanted to go jelly-fishing. Sunday he and Patrick spent the day wriggling within their boxes playing their imagination. All the while I was looking forward to a morning when I would not be awakened by that idiot's nerve grating laugh.

It seemed Monday was not going to come. I could not sleep and the hours between sunset and sunrise passed like a trickle of eternity. Agonizing about the plot, going through it over and over again, every waking moment - I was filled with excitement. I was overwhelmed by a curious anxiety. It appeared that my two days of bliss would be paid for by a morning of agony.

Perhaps the worst part of that affair was that I had to be in-character. In spite of the excitement. I had to by my usual blase Squidward. Lest anything about my demeanor hint of a deviation and invite Spongebob to be all over my business.

When morning came I waited by the bush and watched Spongebob walk to work. I followed Squarepants careful to keep a steady distance between us. That dumb, stupid sponge was too busy singing a song about getting ready and being ready to notice anyway.

I watched the enemy enter the restaurant while I waited at the curb. I noticed a truck pull into the driveway. My heart raced as adrenaline surged through my body. It was time, time, time...I needed to act yet suddenly my steps came slow and labored. I feared, almost cursing, that through my nervousness the opportunity would be missed.

I rushed into the Krab - it was unlocked still unoccupied. I was greeted by the sight of Spongebob with Krabs as they retreated into the kitchen. I heard the delivery people knock at the back. I said hello in my normal monotone voice. Switched hats. Donned name-tag. And pretended to visit the head. But as soon as they were out of eyesight and earshot I snuck into the office.

The floorboard, warped where the formula was hid, awaited my tentacle. When I discovered it was empty I almost spiraled into a meltdown. My fingers turned to butter as the plank slipped out of my grip. I poked, frantic, into the hole just to ensure it was empty and it was empty!

I replaced the wood - god damn it! That crab must have moved it at the last minute. Perhaps in preparation of the delivery? It could not be far.

That was the moment I noticed a drawer. It was the flat center drawer of the desk. It was just slightly ajar - maybe by the width of a hair. I yanked it and there, folded, under rolls of coins, was the document that launched a thousand plots.

As if it were simply nothing of value and I were just innocent and unsuspecting, I looked about the office. Careful not to be observed. I slipped the sheet into my pocket and walked out of the office.

Behind the kitchen Spongebob and Krabs were taking inventory. Larry the Lobster and Don the Whale chatted at a table. I may or may not have waved. I only walked as if nothing occurred - I almost whistled a tune.

I strolled into the head and ambled toward the rear empty stall. There I flushed the toilet and waited. About a minute later the water within the bowl bubbled. That was followed by the emergence through the throat of the drain of a craft piloted by Plankton. We wasted no words - and no time. The document was passed from conspirator to conspirator. The bacteria retreated into the craft and again I flushed the toilet.

My heart raced like I ran a marathon while I stood soaked by sweat.

I did it. I really, actually did it. It happened! After years of struggle between these restaurants the battle was won. Plankton knew the recipe and soon, very, very soon at that, that Spongebob Squarepants problem would be solved.

Curiously, the rest of the day proceeded as normal. A secret kind of pleasure came to me as I realized only I knew at that time how the terms and conditions of the universe shifted. Yes, by a mixture of oversight and arrogance, it was not until the next day that Krabs noticed the formula was missing - he truly believed it was safe.

Krabs ordered a full top to bottom search of the restaurant. Naturally I went along with it. What had I to fear? If I wanted to search as long as I wanted, as hard as I wanted, what of it? The formula would not be found at the restaurant and that was that!

We did not do business that day. At the end we offered the suggestion that maybe Krabs left it at home. The cheapskate seemed partially satisfied by that idea - well, the restaurant was gutted so that left a few options.

Krabs, of course, could not find the formula anywhere.

By the end of the week Plankton revealed a burger. Spongebob and I brought a sample of the Planky Planky Burger. It was safe to say the handwriting was on the wall. Krabs knew the jig was up and there was, literally, nothing that could be done about it.

The formula had not been patented because any attempt to do that would have made its contents public. It was proprietary and derived its value through its secrecy. If any competitor discovered it they were not bound to respect the originator's claim. It was theirs and theirs to exploit at will.

Krabs tried to compete with the energized Chum Bucket but it was vain. Plankton with Karen so automated the process of service - which he called 'fast-food' - that it was impossible to compete. Spongebob was licked! Soon advertisements spread about town touting the benefits of 'fast-food' over 'frycook-food'. The end came when Plankton opened a number of franchises - a move Krabs was too cheap to do.

A month after the heist Plankton came to my Tiki with a very large box. My neighbors, Spongebob and Patrick, were at Jelly Fish Fields nursing their depression at the change of fortune so they did not see the arrival. We took the box into the basement and there, under the cloak of shadows and darkness, we assembled the contraption.

It consisted of three main parts. A platform. A frame like that of a door atop of the platform. A body of dangerous and complex electronics connected to the platform and the frame. Its operation was trivial - a lever, jutting out of a panel, activated the trap. Anything over the platform under the frame was caught in a field like a net.

The way it worked escaped me as I was not an engineer. Plankton explained reduced it to the essential. The field kept atomizing the victim every time it attempted to regenerate. The sponge would be kept in a state of suspended-inanimation - it was not exactly death but not exactly life. Maybe with time, as the sponge disintegrated and disintegrated the power to regenerate was bound to wane, then death would be the outcome. That was theoretical, though, and I confess it did not worry me. For as long as the battery remained operative there would be no escape for my tormentor.

I thanked Plankton and we went our separate ways agreeing thenceforth never to acknowledge the pact nor the benefits thereof.

My new task was to lure Spongebob into my basement - it needed to be done carefully, very very carefully, because it was important that nobody, like a super idiot starfish, got involved.

I tested the device on a few items and I grew confident that I knew exactly how to work it. I arranged it so that the press of a fuse was enough to active the machine. That way I did not need to be next to it to spring that trap.

The trick, though, was how to disguise that contraption so it would not raise suspicion. I solved that puzzle by moving it into the end of the basement and arranging the storage in a way that only a single path led toward it. I spent an hour perfecting that aspect of the design - the sponge was dangerous able to detect the minutest bit of the extraordinary.

I waited until sunset. Spongebob and Patrick already returned by then I just wanted to be sure that there would be no interference. I called my enemy and told him that we arranged a surprise to cheer everyone up. But because Patrick was so sensitive about not ruining a surprise we need to be extra special quiet when coming over.

True to form that aspect of my plot transpired without a hitch. Spongebob knocked at the door. I shoved the cretin into the Tiki. All the while my anxiety was mistaken as part of the surprise. I was not question about anything as I led the way into the basement.

I told Spongebob that I was going to stay back and flip the switch as soon as Patrick jumped and shouted surprise. The fool was gullible. It was too easy that I wondered when and where my demise was about to happen. Yet on cue he waded through my path right onto that platform.

I flipped the switch - my heart skipped a beat - and there, in front of my eyes, it worked!

Strangely I panicked. When I tested the device it was with inanimate nonsponge items. In those cases the trap totally disintegrated the object then shut off. Now that it was used with a sponge it was different. The machine did not switch off as the field had to be kept on continuously. It made the basement unbearably bright. Too bright! And I feared that light would be seen through the windows.

Otherwise there was no scream of pain. No weird, tell-tale sound. No voice, laughter. Just barely the hum of its electronics.

And as for Spongebob - only the outline of the monster could be seen showing as lines of black amid a sea of white.

When I calmed I blocked the windows with canvas. I walked about the circumference of the Tiki to check if any light leaked out of the basement. I was satisfied yet I realized something better than cloth would be needed.

At the basement I cleared all of the clutter. I discovered a tiny forgotten alcove behind the staircase. It was a doorway and behind it chamber were I kept stores of art. There were no windows within it.

I evacuated that chamber then started the process of transporting the device into it. It must have taken an hour to complete the move. I was so damn afraid to touch it. Especially its electronics. Only inch by inch I made the crawl, cursing the cracks and bumps along the way that almost tipped the contraption. But eventually the machine and its victim were safely stowed. I shut the door and blocked its cracks with sheets - then buried it beneath a pile of junk.

It was perfect. Nobody would have guessed anything like a door lay behind that mound. With the door stuffed not a ray of light broke through. The only trace of my deed that I could not mask (completely) was that subtle, gentle hum that came to my ears when everything was quiet.

I felt unsatisfied with the situation at the basement. My choice was to buy a load of brick and mortar and complete the project. The whole entire doorway needed to be walled by masonry. Only then I would be safe.

Yet -

I did not sense any kind of doom. Rather, as second by second passed without incident, my level of confidence increased. I knew then and there it was possible to get away with what happened. Although it was weird to think Spongebob Squarepants was sort of dead, sort of alive and hidden within my basement. That strangeness was drowned by the joy at the realization I was rid of that idiot.

That night I slept peacefully. There were no disturbances to shake me out of a dream. It was just that I could not ignore the hum - it echoed as if amplified by the stillness. It did not seep into my dreams and at morning it was forgotten.

By habit I awoke at seven. Usually my alarm was the sponge and the ruckus out of the Pineapple. It was different - I awoke and that was that. Clearly my body required a time to forget the regular schedule of trauma Spongebob inflicted.

I noted a single disturbance. It came while I emerged out of my house. It was Patrick - yelling and banging at Spongebob's door. The starfish looked at me. I locked my door and walked toward my boat. I tried to be casual as he came closer and closer - eventually asking if I saw Spongebob and I answered 'no'.

I jumped into my boat and drove away.

When I returned Patrick was not to be seen and the Pineapple remained undisturbed - lifeless - except those instants here and there where I thought I saw the snail peek out of a window.

Over the course of the next few weeks my life attained a normalcy I forgot everything about. There were a slew of other changes too - some good, some bad. Everything developed along pathways I did not imagine and could not predict.

The Krusty Krab lost business to the Chum Bucket and without Spongebob it spelt the doom of the restaurant. I was jobless then rebounded as Plankton, through Karen, was kind enough to offer a job at the franchise. Sandy, with Patrick, often came by to knock at the Pineapple and ask if I saw the sponge. I always answered 'no' then retreated into either my house or my boat to kill any chance of conversation. Eventually these daily trips became weekly trips, those weekly trips became monthly trips until I failed to notice a pattern at all.

Almost out of the blue I was struck by a feeling that my victory was hollow. Maybe hollow was not the correct word to chose. Illusion seemed apt. My enemy was not exactly dead (although not exactly alive) and could have been freed by an interloper. The hum that came to be like an alarm alerted the uncertainty of my position.

And to combat that difficulty I decorated my Tiki with clocks - their working proved a band-aid yet adequate solution.

I endeavored to become a truly productive citizen. I felt that what was needed to keep my nerves at rest was to assume the mantle of responsibility of an artist. I started a class at the college and through my hard work and dedication sent waves across the culture of the city.

I hired Larry and Don to pose for my art then chose the whale over the lobster as my muse. We were a pair of narcissists and got along splendidly. 'The End of The Migration' (showing the squid riding the whale) was the first of my New Age Nudist masterpieces.

My life was complete and I forgot about the bricks and mortar project and the deep, dark secret behind that doorway. Even Spongebob passed out of my mind. At first I fancied he did, in fact, go away. That I was not responsible. Soon I did not think about the sponge anymore.

I do not know how many months after the event it was that I noticed it. I only remember that I spread a chair atop the lawn to read reviews about my 'Squid vs. Moby-Dick'. It was at that moment that I realized how decayed the Pineapple looked. A very bad smell came out of it too.

I paid a little attention about what happened next that afternoon. Sandy, Patrick and Spongebob's mom and day came by. Patrick rammed the door while the folks looked onward. Were they scared? Afraid? I tried to keep my eyes averted - toward the contours of my New Age Adonis - I knew what they were going to find, rather, what they were not going to find. Yet I could not help watching the drama like a voyeur.

Patrick came out of that carcass of a house with a shell - empty save a shrivelled strip of flesh. It was Gary. The snail, it appeared, could not escape the house and died of starvation.

Sandy theorized that maybe Spongebob went away and simply did not return. His parents figured it might have been to do with the end of the Krusty Krab. The guilt that the Krabby Patty formula had been stolen. Patrick was telling everyone how depressed the sponge was those last few days together.

Overhearing too much I shut myself off in the Tiki. I spent that afternoon trying to rid my mind of the images I saw through the discipline of a painting. I was laying down the outline of a misshapen, abstract whale when I suddenly chilled. I froze and weakened by fear the brush slipped through my fingers. The paint colored the floor. My heart skipped a beat and I wondered, aloud, how long it had been there. Working. Growing stronger and stronger. For through the mechanical beats of the clocks came the hum like water passing through sieve.

A knock came at the door.

It was Patrick. He found an item at the Pineapple he thought Spongebob wanted me to keep. I guess they figured he was not coming back. I did not ask. It was a picture of us taken at the Krusty Krab restaurant.

Time passed tick by tick.

I did not notice the death of the Pineapple until many, many months later. It escaped me how rotted it looked the last I saw of it. It was shocking not to see it anymore. I was a mix of feelings. Disappointment that I missed those details of its death. Shock at how it seemed I was not living if I could not notice anything as obvious as that. Regret, mostly, that I did not say goodbye - although why I felt that way I could not say.

Above everything was the foreboding sense of angst. I felt like a someone who went to bed a boy and awoke a man. Suddenly thrust into a world where it seemed I did not belong. The death of the Pineapple signalled that, indeed, I reached a point were I could not return. Beyond Spongebob Squarepants could not be a part of my life anymore. All traces of that past where I could have retreated to were obliterated as surely as the prepubescent form is destroyed by the adult body.

I was compelled by curiosity to explore the footprint still embedded into the dirt. A flower had been planted at the center of it. A jellyfish fed of its nectar. It must have been Sandy or the parents who kept the land tended like a garden. Patrick was already quite absent from day to day affairs.

With the last trace of my former life of torment erased I felt I, too, needed a change. My days were spent in the company of others as much as possible. I kept going to and from work, to and from school, such that I wasted only my sleep at home.

I was happy with the band of acquaintances I gathered. There were just a few in the whole of Bikini Bottom who understood my level of sophistication. Only Don ever, truly understood me and what made my art grow. My work continued to gain traction and I benefited by the prestige that followed. Even my old, squid paintings found a home at a gallery.

It was slowly, bit by bit, that I noticed how quiet my life became. I lived alone, slept alone, awoke alone. Went to and fro alone. My friends such as they were tended to be professionals and there was nobody I shared anything like intimacy with. Except Don simply because of the loving, exacting detail I paid to his body when modelling - later it was driven by the excitement we shared at the explorations of our selves.

My job at the Chum Bucket franchise was so automated that I found it worse than what I endured at the Krab. I was scarcely noticed and hardly needed. Customers punched numbers into keyboards and inserted coins into slots. All I was tasked to do was transport food from the kitchen to the table. Sometimes I manned the drive-through.

I was invisible.

Almost without my notice the entire chain of restaurants went out of business.

At the sight of the original Chum Bucket restaurant I inquired about what happened. There I was met by Karen. She told me the hideous truth. With the formula I attained he achieved the dream of being a success. However, that success was not at all what he imagined it would be. Without Krabs to compete with the victory was hollow. Without a chase to look forward to life became so quiet it was not worth the trouble anymore. He bit into a vial of mercurochrome and disintegrated.

Karen chained the door and that was the last I saw the computer.

I came to realize that I missed Sandy and Krabs and, even, my job at the Krab. With Spongebob out of the picture a whole part of my life I did not understand I needed alone appreciated vanished. My madness at the vex of that idiot was such that it blinded me then to what appeared obvious now - a chance at happiness. It was squandered thanks to a hermit way of life elected to keep that freak and its trouble out of my face.

With that sponge gone I regained peace of mind at the cost of those parts of my past that would have given my life any kind of meaning.

I did not mind that I was (effectively) fired as my work, such as it was, did not amount to anything. I missed the pay which was considerable compared to what Krabs offered. The only part of the deal I did not appreciate was that I found myself with more and more free time I did not know what to do with.

I thought about travel until I recalled that it meant leaving my secret vulnerable. I thought about going the rounds, from gallery to gallery, across the state yet I was not a celebrity-artist. I wanted to act someway, somehow because the thought that I could be stuck at home filled me with dread. It was worse by subtlety compared with the torture I faced with Spongebob.

Yes - I speak of the hum. Again. I thought that my employ of clocks would have masked it. I thought I should be able to forget it as it retreated under that symphony of mechanism. My hope proved impossible. The racket was as deafening as any party that twerp ever hosted at the Pineapple.

Out of frustration I unveiled the door and burst into the chamber. It was bright as I recalled it with the glow above the platform under the frame. The outline of Spongebob was just visible through the brightness - it was fainter, more broken than solid. At that point it must have been years and years. Otherwise, everything looked exactly as it was that night.

I did not linger; I stayed to curse at Spongebob as even in life/death he annoyed me.

By Neptune...why was I cursed?

I washed the machine as I thought that dust was the cause of the hum. It did not help. To deafen the noise I fashioned slabs of dense foamy blocks then glued them onto the walls of the chamber. I blotted the crevices of the doorway then shut it. Then I started the task to assemble the bricks about the alcove to seal it forever.

I did not know I failed to buy enough material to complete the job. My work ended with a gap wide enough to let my head through it. It was a point of utter frustration but I judged that a thick, dirty coat of paint and insulator jammed into the hole would be enough to complete the concealment. That eye attuned to detail that I possessed assured that everything looked natural - as if there were nothing untoward hidden by a wall of masonry.

Still, again and again I crawled in front of that pile of junk that also obscured the brick and mortar I lay. I wanted to study it just to be sure. I wanted to see if as if I were anyone totally ignorant of its secret. I wanted to know if it could be discovered.

I was filled the urge to sell the Tiki and flee the city. But fear of that secret escaping and Spongebob returning. And my life ending. I could not act and resigned myself to the fact that there was no way to escape my life. I was trapped every bit as much as that idiot.

After that episode I found a little peace but I was tired and I wanted to re-evaluate everything.

The first few days after my concealment the house echoed with the sounds of the clocks. I allowed myself to feel safe and secure. I drowned myself with work. I spent more and more time with Don, sketching and admiring his body...imagining what life together would be like. Then, in the midst of fantasy, laying awake at night, I realized I still heard that hideous hum!

I coped with that sound by staying away. I needed to escape from what constantly reminded me of that deep dark secret. I found solace out of the strangest of places when I happened by jelly fish fields. First it was to watch the jellies. Then it was to catch the jellies. The hunt, without the yammering annoying Spongebob, was oddly engaging even fulfilling.

Sandy caught my hunt. The squirrel also visited the sponge's haunt. She patted my shoulder saying, effectively, how she missed that idiot. She confessed she wondered why she stayed at Bikini Bottom. Maybe it was the hope that cretin would be back - I just sighed and said it was better to continue with life.

I caught myself walking about the remains of the Krusty Krab restaurant. It had been boarded and abandoned years ago. After Krabs was lost at sea and Pearl allowed the property to foreclose.

My key still worked and I snuck through the back.

The restaurant was an abyss. The furniture was scattered. The kitchen was a disarray. Food had been left exposed and by then decayed into dust. I was struck by the contrast of now versus then - it used to be alive! Filled with customers.

I entered the office - the site of the crime. It looked like a tornado ripped through it. Krabs. He broke everything, from floor to ceiling, and everything between but the formula was not going to be found there anymore. It was funny, I thought, as I did not read the paper I found I did not know the secret Krabby Patty formula. I felt like I needed to find it again.

I slept at my post. At the boat. It was, perhaps, my soundest round of sleep. Only when I stirred was the pleasure of it broken by the memory of Spongebob's acrid screech of laughter. I cursed then snapped out of it - I was alone.

I could not stay at home and to be honest with myself I could not languish about the empty shell of what was my life. I needed to restart. If I was free then I should be able to enjoy it. At least I thought so.

I turned to Don the whale. My model. It was always charged between us. I loving to watch. He loving to show. We engaged in a session of posing and drawing at a gallery. It was night and we were alone. I traced his body, that sleek black and white form, with my tentacles. I followed the contours of his muscles from chest, down, down, to a treasure kept under cover. He revelled at the sensations urged by my touching and let me indulge the pleasures of the flesh.

We were together and at last life was complete.

It came to be that we spent only the briefest of moments at my Tiki. The rare time when it was unavoidable we kept the visit short. I could not deny the advantage that my studio there afforded. Then as we became steady and the hum appeared to vanish altogether the resistance relented and we moved into my house.

The fateful day came when I helped Don store items into the basement. The whale heard the hum. I said it was only the ancient electrical equipment throughout the house. That appeared to satisfy the curiosity of it. The problem was that now my illusion was shattered and I, too, heard the call.

All settled into a curious state of normal. Sane outside. Insane inside. My drive to keep that secret safe introduced a certain negative dynamic that did not exist when we lived elsewhere. Because he could not help hear that hum and my attempts to dissuade my partner of that reality became more and more desperate life together was built upon a lie.

My relationship was a key to fulfillment. The hum - it threatened to unravel everything I created. I threatened to be the outward manifestation of inward torment that I could not deny forever without exposing myself as a liar. Even as it threatened to reveal my secret whose perpetuation already marred my happiness.

I thought it would be best to move and rid myself of Spongebob forever. We looked through a list of houses at night. Little seemed to progress between us regarding a decent place to roost. I vowed to make it work, however, and agreed to view a few potential candidates that week.

It was the middle of the night. All of a sudden I felt a weight lift off of the mattress. It was the whale getting up and walking across - toward the bathroom I thought. When he did not return I looked about. The door was ajar. A light came through the hallway. A key jiggled. And I knew the entrance to the basement was about to be unlocked.

I panicked and struck into action. Alas my feet seemed to fail. My motions were slow and sluggish. Nightmare-like. By the time I reached the kitchen he was already inside the basement. I yelled to wait while he kept on and on about the hum and that it was maddening. I landed at the floor after I tumbled across the steps. My path was blocked by stacks of trash.

Breaking through the junk I caught Don ramming my wall with his body until the masonry crumbled and the door beyond it was exposed.

I shouted to stop as the whale breached the door and crashed into the chamber. There was the machine - glowing a little dull. Its battery weakened. Plankton did not tell me how long it lasted. A fear that the machine would be stopped and Spongebob would be freed impelled a reflex. I did not mean it. I could not mean it. I - I pushed my lover onto the platform and everything from the head to the neck exploded in a sea of red. More blood than I thought was possible gushed out of the wound and I screamed.

I was blinded by red and the body, dead, floated about as if caught by its current of blood. Through that chaos I crawled out of the chamber and shut the door yet the blood seeped through the cracks. Poured. Expanded. I fled upstairs and saw my entire Tiki tainted by the remains of my boyfriend whom I killed to keep my nightmare from waking.

Yet I could have fixed it. I could have stopped the leak of blood and contained my guilt. If only Sandy did not come early that day to pay respects at the garden. She spotted the geyser of blood and called the police.

Just as I was blotting the door and concocting a story about my paint exploding the officers arrived and sniffed about my basement.

They found the body and the machine. I feared everything would be lost the moment they destroyed it. As I watched, aghast, while the glow was silenced I broke into laughter for instead of Spongebob emerging out of the field there were just a million little pieces of yellow burnt confetti. After years and years of constant destruction and regeneration Spongebob lost the battle with the machine. Neptune only knows how long it had been that way.

I could have turned off the machine myself and Don would not be dead.

I sit in the midst of the eternal void. In my cell alone. At last there is quiet and thoughts wander toward the course my life took. If I regret anything it is that I destroyed my happiness. It was not Spongebob Squarepants at the end. Or perhaps...perhaps it was the fear of that idiot and the madness induced by his shenanigans.

So...day by day passes and my connection to the world beyond these walls dims a little more. I forget such things as what Don looked like. What my own art looked like. The world I created - all of it - distant as if only imagined. Truthfully I do not care what happens outside of prison. I learned to continue by expunging these things from my mind and, curiously, I adjust well.

But I take solace in the very thing that I do not regret - no matter how I long to walk the fields, no matter how I picture the Krab and its crew, no matter how I yearn for my lover's arms, no matter how I miss gazing onto the Pineapple and that is that my existence is free of that laughter!

At last my madness ends.

**END**


End file.
